Taking stock of the year

Whether New Year’s Day is a big deal or just another day to you, it probably prods us all to take stock of the past year. Imagine one of those “Major Events of 2012” articles written not about world news, but about your life. What would that list include?

Of course, life comprises not only major events, but day-to-day work, relationships, activities, chores, and habits. The stuff we do most of the time. Maybe it’s the little things that really color our years.

I keep a list of books I read for fun. In some years, the list is regrettably short. Here’s a sampling of titles read (or re-read, which still count, in my opinion) in 2012:

It’s a random mix, albeit skewed toward yoga books and portable paperbacks to read on the bus. Assessing my list, I thought to myself: Too random. Why not focus on one author (as I mentioned in So many books, so little time)? Or one field of study? Be more systematic. Become an expert on something rather than a dabbler.

A few years ago I reluctantly cancelled my New Yorker subscription because the weekly magazine distracted me from reading enough books. Certainly the profiles and features introduced me to fascinating people and subject matter (and I loved the cartoon caption contest on the last page). But I found that the articles (even those I found compelling and brilliantly written) didn’t really stick in my mind. Months later, I’d be racking my brain trying to recall details about, say, that lawyer who cracks down on designer counterfeiting or that woman who’s an undercover Michelin inspector. Is there value to reading stuff that you don’t retain very long?

Are there other half-baked projects in your life? Take yoga asana. I might commit to one pose or family of poses, and then a workshop or class will lure me elsewhere. My teacher, Louie Ettling, never repeats the same sequences, so I’m always picking up new ideas. Subs can also shake up my routine. Once, Linda Shevloff did full Gomukhasana, sitting on the foot (which I wasn’t regularly practicing) and it suddenly got promoted to my regular lineup. There are dozens, even hundreds, of poses, all clamoring for attention!

So why not be more systematic in my home practice? Maybe 2013 can be the year of backbends, especially Eka Pada Rajakapotasana I, an on-again/off-again obsession of mine. It might be the year of Supta Virasana, which, despite good intentions described in On Supta Virasana and sticking to resolutions, ended up on the back burner. How about the year of daily pranayama? The year that I fully heal a residual hamstring injury? The year of getting in touch with “the three diaphragms”?

There’s nothing wrong with variety, of course. But general knowledge and skills take you only so far. You can know a little about a lot of subjects, or a lot about a few. You can do many skills middlingly well, or you can do some of them very well. This goes for relationships, too: countless friendly acquaintances versus a handful of true friends. Time is limited, life is short. Target what really matters to you.

i think about general knowledge versus specified knowledge a lot. buckminster fuller and many other great minds say that much of our societal problems are rooted in overly focused knowledge.

this over-focus blinds people from more integral realities, for instance from making connections across fields of knowledge. on the other hand, as you say, we can over-generalize and therefore miss important knowledge in focused areas of study.

i feel that the real “problem” is that we just have such little time to do so many things we want to do. if only we didn’t have to choose and could do it all : )

i think about general knowledge versus specified knowledge a lot. buckminster fuller and many other great minds say that much of our societal problems are rooted in overly focused knowledge.

this over-focus blinds people from more integral realities, for instance from making connections across fields of knowledge. on the other hand, as you say, we can over-generalize and therefore miss important knowledge in focused areas of study.

i feel that the real “problem” is that we just have such little time to do so many things we want to do. if only we didn’t have to choose and could do it all : )

Thanks for all of your comments. Good point, Che, about balancing general and specific knowledge. I suspect that we must cultivate our key interests while keeping an open eye/mind toward the rest of the world! In today’s Internet age, I suspect that people are becoming more generalist (one can become a superficial expert on any topic by a quick Google search), with shorter attention spans, whether for reading (books versus websites) or for social interaction (10 one-line Facebook posts to 500 “friends” is not equivalent to a detailed letter or a face-to-face conversation with a real friend).

Perhaps we must observe our own tendencies. I have multiple interests and tend to spread myself too thinly IMO. But others might be focused to the point of tunnel vision.

I was thinking more about the New Yorker. I still love reading it and might resubscribe at any moment, but reading an article about this or that should [at least sometimes] be a launching pad and not the end point. Otherwise it is just another diversion, amusing and educational as it might seem. Or, maybe we need diversions to keep us sane! Again, balance.